the AMC is (almost) here!!!

Hundreds of grassroots media makers and social justice organizers are on their way to Detroit. And hundreds more are getting ready to greet them, at the 10th Annual Allied Media Conference, June 20-22, held on the campus of Wayne State University.

“While there are many media conferences held throughout the year, none approach grassroots media-makers, policy organizers and media justice fellow-travelers with as much focus, intention and urgency as the Allied Media Conference.” — Siyade Gemechisa, 2007 AMC Participant

Register now!

At the 2008 AMC you’ll find over 60 hands-on workshops, film screenings and focused discussions such as:

• Using What You Got to Create & Promote: Grassroots Video Production
• The Future of Censorship
• Be the Web: Using Web 2.0 Innovations to Organize and Connect
• Slingshot Hip Hop (Sundance Film Festival 2008 Official Selection)
• Using Google Maps for Youth Community Organizing
• The Art of Awesome Facilitation
• Plotting a Media-based Economy for Detroit’s Future

and so much more…

Over 15 youth organizations will come together to run the Youth Media Lab– a hotbed of hands-on activity in the basement of the conference center– throughout the whole weekend.

The AMC provides childcare, and for the first year, we will offer a “kids track” of media-based activities for kids in the childcare area.

For the second year, INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence collaborates with the SPEAK Women of Color Media Justice collective and the AMC to produce a track of sessions aimed at using to media to end violence against women and trans people of color.

Popular education is woven into every aspect of the conference.  But the Popular Education track is especially designed for educators looking  to incorporate new media-based curricula into their teaching.

When it comes to media policy work, the AMC empowers media-makers at the grassroots to understand and shape the policies that directly affect them, rather than default to the experts.  This year, Peoples Production House sponsors a policy track focused on The Future of the Internet.

By day, we get our hands dirty and our minds sharp.  By night, we bowl and we party.  From the bowling party and the shakespeare hip hop/rock show on Friday night to the Emergence music showcase on Saturday night–the AMC is all about the afterhours…

Come early and stay late! The local youth media organization, Detroit Summer will host a pre-AMC youth hip hop show called D-TENSION on Thursday June 19th, and post-AMC tours of the city on the afternoon of  Sunday June 22.

Bring your whole crew. We can’t wait to see you.

~AMC08 Organizers

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click here to see all the sessions in the Women/Trans People of Color track ///////////////////////

Please consider donating to help alleviate travel costs of women of color media makers participating in the INCITE! track. There is no donation too big or too small, and we appreciate the support. Check the widget on the right side of this page >>>> for instructions on donating. Please repost and forward to yr networks!

SisterSong: volunteers needed in Atlanta

via emi:

Greeting Friends and Supporters of SisterSong,

This summer SisterSong has an amazing volunteer opportunity available for anyone living in the Atlanta area.

This summer we are site visiting stand alone pharmacies in the city of Atlanta and requesting Emergency Contraception, an over the counter drug that prevents pregnancy up to 72 hours after unprotected sex. Through our phone surveys, particularly in communities of color, we have identified several pharmacies that are either giving out misinformation or incomplete information regarding Emergency Contraception and its availability. We need young women in the Metro Atlanta area who are willing to walk into a pharmacy and request this vital over the counter drug. We also welcome teens and parents willing to engage pharmacists as well.

By summer’s end, SisterSong will produce a report card grading the pharmacies performance on EC availability, customer service, and accurate information.
But we need your help to visit all the pharmacies in the city of Atlanta !

If you would like to participate in our EC Access Project please contact Heidi Williamson at 404-756-2680 or Heidi@sistersong.net ASAP.

Heidi Williamson

Advocacy & Membership Coordinator

SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective

1237 Ralph David Abernathy Blvd.
, SW

Atlanta, GA 30310-1731

T: 404.756.
2680

F: 404.756.
2684

Heidi@SisterSong.net

www. SisterSong. net

Golfing for Michigan Migrant Legal Aid

via adele. fwd this to people you know with $ who like golf:

> I need your support on behalf of Migrant Legal Aid, a great charity.
> This is a really fun golf outing.
>
> If you like beer, prizes, golfing or driving the cart, and eating
> grilled steak, please join us May 23 for The Cup of Justice scramble.
> It’s a charity golf outing that benefits Migrant Legal Aid so I can keep
> helping the migrant workers in Michigan. We need more foursomes!
>
> To sponsor a hole for $150, just call us with your credit card number,
> or send $150 and your company will be featured at the tee! Plenty of
> business owners and attorneys will see it.
>
> This outing is our best chance to get the support we really need, we
> don’t get it from any government sources.
>
> Very Truly Yours,
>
> Teresa Hendricks
>
> Director
> Michigan Migrant Legal Assistance Project Inc. (Migrant Legal Aid)
> 648 Monroe Ave NW Suite 318
> Grand Rapids, MI 49503
> (616) 454-5055
> (616) 454-7022

Protected: conversation between INCITE! and WOC media makers at the AMC

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Invest in Peace

From Yaman Salahi:

Dear friends,

I just wanted to take a moment to let you all know about a new campaign that Jewish Voice for Peace has started, soliciting testimonials from individuals who support efforts by the Methodist and Presbyterian churches to engage in selective divestment from the Israeli occupation.

Please check it out at www.investinpeace.org and forward it to any friends/listserv’s to help it gather publicity and more entries.

Best,

yaman

CIW’s National Campaign to End Sweatshops and Slavery in the Fields

View Current Signatures -   Sign the Petition

---

To:  Burger King Headquarters

WHEREAS, there is an ongoing human rights crisis in Florida’s fields, including:

* poverty wages, rooted in an antiquated piece-rate pay system that hasn�t changed significantly in nearly 30 years;

* long hours without overtime pay when work is available, unemployment and transience when it is not;

* physical abuse and wage fraud by crewleaders, supervisors, and growers;

* damage to body and soul from back-breaking labor, with no employment benefits such as sick days, paid leave, health insurance, or pensions;

* retaliation against workers who protest or organize to alleviate these inhuman conditions;

* and, most shamefully, modern-day slavery, with six successful federal prosecutions of farm labor operations for servitude in Florida over the past decade, and a seventh just initiated, involving well over 1,000 workers and more than a dozen farm employers;

WHEREAS, by leveraging their high-volume purchasing power to extract the lowest prices possible, Burger King and other food industry leaders profit from and play an active role in creating the miserable conditions in Florida�s fields;

WHEREAS, Burger King and other food industry leaders have not only refused to join Yum! Brands and McDonald’s in working with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) to improve farm labor conditions, but have actually sought to reverse gains made by workers in agreements with those corporations;

WHEREAS, private equity firms including Goldman Sachs, Texas Pacific Group, Bain Capital and others, which are principal shareholders in Burger King and other food industry leaders, have made significant investments in the restaurant industry over the past decade, and have ignored calls by farmworkers and consumers for farm labor reform, while continuing to draw billions of dollars in private profits from their investments;

THEREFORE, I add my name and voice to those of countless consumers calling upon Burger King and other food industry leaders to immediately join with the CIW in efforts to end exploitation in the fields and modern-day slavery in the 21st century. I am also prepared to stop patronizing Burger King now, and other food industry leaders in the future, should they fail to do so.

Specifically, I call on Burger King and other food industry leaders to:

1. Pay a penny more per pound for tomatoes and ensure that the increase is passed on to tomato pickers in the form of increased wages; and

2. Work with the CIW to establish and enforce a human rights-based code of conduct, including zero tolerance for forced labor, to ensure fair and safe working conditions.

(For more information about the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and this campaign, visit www.ciw-online.org
If you live in Philadelphia and are interested organizing locally for fair food and dignified work for all, email us at phillysupportsciw(at)gmail.com)

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

Critical Moment needs your help

CRITICAL MOMENT is facing a financial crisis and asks you for your support!

Dear supporter of independent media,

Critical Moment needs your help. We need to raise $2000 to sustain ourselves for the next two months.

In recent months, Critical Moment has suffered a loss of ad revenue. Several long-time advertisers, struggling with their own financial difficulties, have been forced to cut back on advertising. The CM collective has taken a number of measures in order to cut costs, including printing in black and white and reducing the size of each issue. We are committed to rebuilding and expanding our advertiser base (our largest single source of revenue), and building alternative fundraising avenues. What is more, we have several new volunteers in the collective dedicated to creating high-quality, truly progressive media for Southeast Michigan and beyond.

Yet despite our best efforts, we are facing a budget shortfall that threatens our ability to continue printing. In the face of these financial problems, Critical Moment needs you to help us get back on our feet.

Support Critical Moment today with a donation of $15 or higher, and you will receive a one-year subscription. Make a donation of $50 or more, and you will receive a copy of the classic “Detroit: I Do Mind Dying” by Dan Georgakas and Marvin Surkin, a must-have for anyone interested in the history of Southeast Michigan.

To sweeten the deal, the person who makes the first $50 donation will also receive a new hardcover copy of Seymour Hersh’s “Chain of Command: The Road From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib.”

And, the person who makes the first $100 donation will also receive a new copy of “Who Built America?” a two-volume history text published by the American Social History Project; an incredible reference book and already a modern classic.

Beyond these enticements, why should you support Critical Moment?

•    We are one of the most important independent media voices in Southeast Michigan, and one of the only truly progressive papers in Michigan.
•    Critical Moment is a collective; the paper is produced on a completely volunteer basis by committed writers and activists
•    We feature unique coverage unavailable anywhere else: Rev. Pinkey of Benton Harbor, the struggle for a moratorium on foreclosures in Detroit, labor struggles, issues involving women of color, the rights of immigrants in Southeast Michigan, updates on organizing campaigns, etc.
•    In the past three years we have printed nineteen issues featuring hundreds of authors. Many social justice organizers in Michigan have been published for the first time in CM, and have thanked us for the opportunity to express their ideas in writing.
•    We print 7000 free copies of every issue, and our distribution network extends from Detroit to Ann Arbor to Lansing to downriver and the northern and eastern Detroit suburbs. All of our issues are also available online.
•    Our unique coverage of social justice issues elicits constant inquiries from readers and activists wishing to connect with individuals and organizations featured in the magazine. For us, this is one of our greatest successes - helping to link people and organizations. People get information about organizations that can help them, and organizations receive an influx of donations and volunteers when their work is featured in Critical Moment.

Please don’t let this important publication go down. We run on a relatively small budget. Our modest goal of $2000 will help us get back on our feet and sustain ourselves through this difficult period.

We look forward to a bright future of expanded circulation, greater frequency of publishing, and the ability to pay our wonderful authors. But we need your help today to secure the foundation upon which that future can be built.

Invest in alternative media. Support Critical Moment.

•    To make a donation online go to www.criticalmoment.org and click the “Donate” button.

•    To mail in a donation, send a check to Critical Moment, P.O. Box 442175, Detroit, MI 48244.

•    Please contact us if you would like to make a tax-deductible donation.

Onward,

The Critical Moment Editorial Collective
Paul Abowd, Matthew Cross, Clara Hardie, Chris Lee, Carmen Mendoza-King, Adele Nieves, Bryan G. Pfeifer, Fred Vitale